


Say You Fight For Us, Cross Your Heart, Hope To Die

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Series 12 Vignettes [6]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Police, Post-Episode: s12e02 Spyfall Part 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23054110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: After Daniel Barton's actions, Yaz returns home to find her life in tatters... and one crucial thing is on the verge of being ripped away from her. Faced with being removed from duty, there's nothing anyone can do... or is there?
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Yasmin Khan & Ryan Sinclair
Series: Series 12 Vignettes [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731406
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	Say You Fight For Us, Cross Your Heart, Hope To Die

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the fact that I'm 99.9% sure that Yaz's employers would have something to say about her being a wanted criminal, however briefly...

“I’m sorry, Yaz,” Sergeant Sunder sighed heavily, looking down at the file in front of him. It was angled away from Yaz, but she didn’t need to see it to know what it contained – copies of Barton’s social media appeals regarding her and printouts of her wanted posters, alongside her probationary paperwork and her HR record, which was marred – she cursed her own stupidity – by her long ‘secondments’. Together, the combination of documents would paint a strange picture of her, and any hope that she had that her record would count in her favour was rapidly slipping away as the sergeant’s expression grew darker with each passing minute. “I really am, but-”

“I’ve explained, haven’t I?” Yaz asked in desperation, feeling panic rising in her chest. She knew she was begging and knew that it ought to be humiliating, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. “I told you what happened; it weren’t my fault. It was all a fix-up.”

“Yes,” Sergeant Sunder frowned, sighing again in a way that clearly signalled he would like to be anywhere other than here, doing anything other than having this conversation. “Some long and complicated story about aliens and Daniel Barton which made absolutely no sense whatsoever.”

“Don’t you remember your phone trying to… don’t you remember it trying to change you?”

The look on the sergeant’s face telegraphed that he did not, and moreover, that he thought that she was several screws loose.

“No,” he said wearily. “And conveniently, Daniel Barton, the only person who can corroborate your mad story, hasn’t been seen since, so there’s no one to back up your version of events.”

“It’s true!” Yaz insisted, her tone becoming increasingly wheedling. She couldn’t lose this job, not after everything; it had taken this to make her realise how much she enjoyed being PC Khan, as well as being Yaz-Who-Saves-Planets. “It’s all true; ask the Doctor! She’ll tell you all about the Kasaavin!”

The sergeant’s expression became one of sudden understanding, and she realised what he must think she meant. “Ah,” he said, his smile becoming maddeningly condescending. “I see. Yes. Your… Doctor.”

“See what?!” Yaz asked, before his expression hardened and she realised that it was too late to change his mind, and he was about to deliver the final, damning blow. “No, wait… she’s not… no!”

“Yaz, I’m sorry,” Sergeant Sunder said again, closing her file with a definitive snap, and Yaz felt her heart break in anticipation of what was to come. “I really am. You’re one of my best probationers, but the higher-ups have spoken. After all that… business with the wanted posters, we can’t have you on the books. It wouldn’t look right, you know? People wouldn’t feel able to trust you.”

“Because I’m a dangerous criminal?” Yaz all but shouted, getting to her feet and slamming her hands down on the table as her sorrow gave way to anger and her temper frayed. “Because… what? Tell me what I’ve actually done, other than appear as wanted for something that I’ve explained _was a fix-up_!”

“Yaz,” the sergeant said, flicking his gaze to the glass wall behind her, and she knew without looking that her entire team – former team, she supposed now – were staring at her, but she no longer cared what they thought of her. “I’m sorry, alright? It’s out of my hands. I wish things could be different, but…”

“They’re not,” Yaz said bluntly, straightening up and folding her arms to disguise the fact that her hands were shaking treacherously. “Well. Thanks a lot, I guess.”

She turned and stalked from the room without waiting to be dismissed, tears her eyes as she fought to maintain her composure. As she walked out of the building, she tried to ignore the judgemental stares that followed her onto the street, where Ryan was sat on a nearby bench with his hood up and headphones in, staring down at his phone in a concerted effort to ensure that his face remained partially-disguised from anyone passing by. Despite his air of apparent engrossment, his head snapped up immediately when Yaz stormed past him, and he yanked his headphones out of his ears and jumped to his feet in a well-coordinated manoeuvre that would normally have impressed her.

“Hey!” he said brightly, his face lighting up at the sight of her, before he seemed to notice her facial expression and adopted a more appropriately sombre tone. “How’d it go?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Yaz muttered, keeping her head down as she stalked off in the general direction of the nearby river, and some peace and quiet to stew in her own emotions. “Alright?”

“Alright,” he acquiesced easily, trying and failing to fall into step beside her. She was walking at her fastest pace, determined not to linger lest passers-by recognise her, and Ryan was visibly struggling to match her speed. “Could you maybe slow up a little bit?”

“No.”

“Well, do you want to be left alone?”

“Ideally, yeah,” Yaz snapped, then felt an immediate surge of guilt as Ryan’s face fell. He’d only meant well, and he hadn’t needed to come with her to her final disciplinary meeting but he’d insisted, repeatedly asserting that she wouldn’t want to have the face the levels of attention they now attracted by herself. _And_ he’d waited outside, alone, when the desk sergeant had told him to; she could only imagine the sort of comments and stares he must have attracted. She opened her mouth to speak again, but he turned away before she could do so.

“Fine,” he said with a shrug, his expression becoming closed off. “See you later.”

She paused for a fraction of a second, caught between wanting to apologise and needing to be alone, and then decided she would make amends later, when Ryan would have her full attention, and continued in her solo trek, wrapping her scarf around her face and keeping her head bowed. For once, she was grateful for Sheffield’s dreadful weather; no one gave her a second glance, assuming she was simply bundled up against the cold.

She’d known this would happen; not _this_ exactly, but something like this. She had done from the first moment she’d met the Doctor; she’d known that one day, something terrible would happen and her real life – the one outside the TARDIS; the one she came home to at the end of the day – would be catastrophically, irredeemably damaged beyond repair. She’d tried to put the thought out of her mind; tried to ignore it and tell herself she was only being pessimistic, but now her worst fear had come to pass, and with it came the loss of her career.

She wanted to scream; wanted to stamp her feet and rage and complain that it wasn’t fair as though she were a child again, but she knew that to do so would only draw attention to her. As the general population of Sheffield – and, indeed, the country – considered her to be a dangerous lunatic, this would only attract negative attention, and so she refrained from doing so. She merely clenched her fists in her pockets and increased her speed, wondering how to break it to her parents that she had been dismissed from her job.

Her family had trusted her explanation of what had happened with Barton utterly, so there was at least that. She hadn’t told them everything, of course; they wouldn’t have believed her if she started throwing around words like ‘time travel’ or ‘spaceship’, so she’d kept it simple and explained the involvement of the Secret Services. They’d believed that, especially when taken into consideration alongside her frequent secondments, and she wondered whether she could explain her dismissal from the force as a complicated ruse, and then claim that she was working for MI6. It wasn’t _too_ far-fetched, but then there would be the question of what she would do about money. She supposed that _all_ jobs were out of the question now; she’d become a pariah in her own country, and she was essentially unemployable for the near future, if not forever. Angry though she was at Sergeant Sunder, she couldn’t blame him.

She’d been suspended after a stranger had assaulted her in the street while she was on her way to work, apparently attempting vigilante-style justice on her; she could still feel the throbbing sting of the fading purple bruise across her eye socket and cheekbone. It wasn’t the stranger’s fault; Barton had done a number on the UK population, and to undo that – if it _could_ be undone, as the Doctor had dubiously claimed – would take time.

Reaching the familiarity of the River Don and its pretty waterside park, she felt her eyes fill with fresh tears as she slouched over to a nearby bench and flung herself down on it, surreptitiously wiping her eyes as she put her hood up and stared out at the water. She’d come here on her lunch break on her first day on the job, and she remembered sadly how proud she’d felt then; how excited she felt to think she would be helping those in need and bringing justice to Sheffield’s streets.

There was a familiar _vworp vworp_ sound behind her, and she swore under her breath as she listened to the doors creaking open and footsteps approaching.

“This seat taken?” a subdued, familiar voice asked, and a second later the Doctor plonked herself down beside her without waiting for an answer.

“Yes,” Yaz muttered belatedly, but the Doctor only gave her a sidelong sympathetic look and handed her a large handkerchief patterned with question marks. The wordless gesture was too much, and Yaz dissolved into tears, burying her face in the proffered cotton square for several minutes as she wept.

“Ryan called me. I’m sorry,” the Doctor said quietly, settling her hand on Yaz’s shoulder, and for a second, Yaz considered shrugging it off before instead relaxing into the contact. The Doctor, appearing heartened, settled an arm around Yaz’s shoulders, and Yaz leaned against her with a degree of reticence, grateful for the gesture and yet deeply conflicted about the role of the Doctor in the loss of her job. “I really am. I’m trying my best to fix it, but it just… I thought I could fix it before… I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all I ever wanted to do,” Yaz said in a small voice, hating how clichéd it sounded. “Ever since I was a teenager, I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to help people, especially people who felt or looked like me.”

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said again, her tone unusually subdued. “I’ll fix it, I promise.”

“How?” Yaz snapped, removing the hanky from her face and looking over at the Doctor with exasperation. While she recognised that her tone was perhaps disingenuously sharp, she couldn’t bring herself to care. As she looked over at her friend, the Time Lady’s face was a mask of guilt, and something about that caused Yaz’s frustration to well up in her chest, and she continued, her voice growing angrier until she was shouting: “Don’t you think you’ve done enough? You show up in our lives, claiming to be some kind of alien, then whisk us away in your bloody box without thinking that at the end of it all – you know, when it’s all over, at the end of the fun day out – some of us have lives to go back to; lives, and people! It’s alright for you, alone in your bloody box, but I had a career! I had a life! I’ve still got a family, but most of them aren’t bloody speaking to me; my job’s in tatters; I’ve got no prospects and no hope of getting a job. I can’t even walk down the flipping street without people taking my photo; you’ve ruined _everything!”_

The Doctor’s look of contrition intensified, and Yaz felt a stab of guilt at her words, although she couldn’t quite bring herself to apologise. The Doctor was trying her best, yes, and yet the inescapable fact remained that it was through her presence in Yaz’s life that she had found herself on a Wanted list, and subsequently found herself without a job.

“God, you have no idea, do you?” Yaz shook her head in exasperation. “Absolutely no bloody idea. You think you can just show up and show us the universe and then we can just… I don’t know, show up for work on Monday and act like nothing has happened and expect everything to be fine? Well, it’s not fine. This meant something to me, you know. This meant _everything_ to me, and now it’s ruined. I trained for that for years. I went out every night, running in the dark, to pass basic training, even though I was knackered and I was scared out my wits. I stood up to people who were a foot taller than me; I got spat at and sworn at and punched and worse, but it’s all I ever wanted. I wanted to make a difference and stand up and be someone out on the street who _looked_ like the people on the street. A new sort of police officer, who actually understood what it was like to be different, to feel different. And I was doing it; I was passing my exams; I was passing my probation. I was so bloody tired all the time, but I thought I could have it all… I really thought I could. I was so bloody stupid and naïve, and now… now it’s gone. All of it, gone, and it’s your fault. It’s all your bloody fault.”

The Doctor was looking very pointedly down at the floor, and it was then that Yaz realised the Time Lady was crying.

“I’m sorry,” Yaz mumbled, hanging her head in guilt. “I’m sorry, I…”

“No,” the Doctor said quietly, and she raised her head and flashed a quick smile, although her eyes were wet with tears. “No, you’re right. I don’t know how to fix it, Yaz, but I’ll give it a good go. I don’t care what it takes; I’ll do it. I’ll find a way to make everything alright; not just for you, but for Ryan and Graham as well.”

“I don’t want you to fix things,” Yaz snapped. “I want you to have never broken them.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Well then, leave me alone for a bit. Alright?” Yaz stood, shoving her hands in her pockets. “Just… leave me alone.”

“Yaz…” the Doctor began, getting to her feet. “Yaz, wait-”

“No,” Yaz told her. “No, I need to be on my own. Alright? Leave me alone.”

She strode off before the Time Lady could say another word, her head bowed and a single tear tracking its way down her cheek.

* * *

It was two weeks before Yaz felt able to speak to the Doctor again. Two weeks of lying in bed, perusing jobsites on her phone and working on her meagre CV. Two weeks of countless cups of tea, lounging around watching daytime telly, and not getting changed out of her loungewear. Two weeks of being trapped in the flat, unable to even nip to the corner shop for a pint of milk, lest she be set upon by further groups of do-gooders intent on bringing her to justice.

She texted the Doctor before she could stop herself, then listened to the familiar _vworp vworp_ sound of the TARDIS as it materialised with laser-precision in the centre of her bedroom floor seconds later.

The Doctor stuck her head out tentatively, caught sight of Yaz, and then beamed widely.

“Hi,” she said brightly, before noticing Yaz’s sombre expression and adjusting her own accordingly, adopting a look of seriousness. “Sorry. Hello.”

She stepped out of the TARDIS and closed the doors behind her, leaning against them and offering Yaz a shy smile.

“How are you doing?” she asked with sincerity, looking around the room at the mess and detritus that had accumulated over the previous fourteen days, but magnanimously not commenting on any of it. Yaz felt a sudden flush of embarrassment at the state of her room, full of dirty plates and half-empty mugs of tea.

“I’ve been better,” Yaz confessed, trying to find the right words to convey how she felt. “Very much better, but also very much worse.”

“And how’s…” the Doctor gestured vaguely, but Yaz knew what she meant.

“I’m working on it,” she said in a small voice. “But it’s not going well.”

“I might be able to-”

“I’m sorry about what I said before,” Yaz blurted, cutting the Time Lady off. “You know, by the river. I was angry and I was upset and I took it out on you, like a prat. I said a lot of stuff I didn’t mean, and I’m really sorry. You’re my friend, and I never meant to upset you or anything.”

“And you’re my friend,” the Doctor smiled sadly, twisting her hands together in front of her as she continued: “And I never meant to ruin your life. I’m sorry, Yaz. I really am,” she sighed, sinking down on the bed beside Yaz and putting her head in her hands. “I should’ve learnt by now, and I just… every time, this happens, and I swear it won’t again; every time I think I can protect my friends, and then the game changes and the rules go out the window and…”

“Don’t blame yourself.”

“But it’s my fault,” the Doctor sighed again, more heavily this time. “And I want to fix it; I do. I’ve been asking around and there’s a place in London that’s interested in you; they’re reforming after a lot of upheaval. They were disbanded a few years back, but C’s murder got the government in a right old panic, so the funding has been secured and they’re back in business.” She held out a business card to Yaz. “Sorry, I know it’s a bit vague but… call the number. They’ll explain.”

Yaz looked down at the glossy black card.

“ _Unified Intelligence Taskforce_ ,” she read aloud, looking over to the Doctor for an explanation but receiving only a shrug in response.

“I said I’d help,” the Doctor said simply. “Consider this a nudge. The rest is up to you, PC Khan.”


End file.
